Adrift And Lost
by Orchid Falls
Summary: The words still echo in her ears. Everything stopped that day. Except for Susan, Susan carried on.


**A/n's: **Written for the fanfic fest over on LJ. Using the prompt: "Ignoring or using Neil Gaiman's interpretation--how Susan coped with the loss of her siblings." Considering I've only ever read snippets of the story, I chose to ignore.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own it and all that jazz.

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Adrift And Lost

_those who are dead are not dead_

_they're just living in my head_

_and since I fell for that spell_

_i am living there as well_

_42 - coldplay_

_-_

It doesn't rain the day of the funeral.

Susan expects it to be moist grey air all around her, thick fog in her mouth and hard to move her limbs, like she's straining through liquid or re-living time all over again. It isn't.

She wears black of course, even though it has never suited her skin tone, she's far too pale and red lipped and patched with freckles to pull it off. Lucy would have thought her dreary, scrunched her nose and wrinkled her forehead. Susan's skin pricks, the bracelet of her sister's, saved from the wreckage and bent slightly at the clasp catching at her wrist, the only thing to survive intact. Lucy would have still said she was beautiful, a roll of her eyes and a smart grin fattening her lips.

Her heels sink into the ground and stick and she ran through two pairs of nylons as she dressed in the morning before eventually giving in, and now the grass itches at her ankles; barelegged all the way - she imagines Edmund's laughing, hiding a smirk of a smile behind his fringe and dark eyes.

Passing, everybody touches her: fingers to her arm, arms on her shoulder, eyes on her face. Aunt Alberta collapses boneless to the ground and the sobs echo over and press against Susan's ears. Uncle Harold picks her up wordlessly, tucks her arm through his own and carries all her weight.

Nobody holds Susan.

The sun shines down and it doesn't rain, she might even feel her skin pinch a little in the heat.

She thinks Peter would have held her hand, once anyway.

-

After and later when it's night, the house is quiet.

There's stale food becoming even staler on the table, dirty plates and glasses and flowers not in water.

By now Mother would have had her hands in the sink, Lucy stood next to her drying, song in her head and curl of a smile on her face. Father would be asleep in his chair, Edmund and Peter clearing off the table, snatches of their conversation warming the room.

Susan, well Susan would be doing something. It is too quiet.

She curls her feet beneath her, rests her head back against the chair and presses her hand to her mouth. Her breath stiffens. It still smells of dirt, the soils in her fingernails, stuffed along the creases of her palm. She shudders when she thinks of it lying over them.

Everything is a mess. Susan doesn't even know where to begin.

-

Here's what nobody ever told her, old houses talk.

The plumbing gurgles and pipes whistle above, floorboards groan and creak as they contract.

She hears Lucy laughing, Edmund's feet running on the floor, Peter's voice as if he's right next to her ear.

Susan always smiles before the tears come. They fall thick and heavy.

-

Some nights now, more than she'd care to admit to, she doesn't sleep in her own bed.

She takes to moving between rooms and catches herself pressing her head into pillows and breathing in deep.

One day, not today but soon, they won't be there anymore. The burning starts in her throat and moves to prick against the corners of her eyes. Her fingers curl in the blankets and if she stutters when she breathes there's no one there to hear it.

She misses them.

The smells sink into her skin and hair by the morning and always, if the wind blows just right, Peter, Edmund and Lucy are right behind her, as if they never even left.

_

Dust starts to gather on bedside tables, along walls and in between photographs.

Susan runs her fingers through memories; thick and knotting in her hand. The dust disappears with a sweep of her cloth; quirk of Peter's lips, the feel of Edmund's arm tucked against her own, Lucy's fingers tapping on her shoulder.

-

The will doesn't leave much to be desired, not after the bills and accounts are taken care of.

She has to sell the house.

Susan packs what she can into boxes marked _keep, _all bright red pen and straight lines, something from every room. Her fingers itch at the belongings she can't, six lives packed into just four cardboard boxes.

Her new flat is small and stuffy and everything smells new.

"What do you think?" Her new roommate, Emily, smiles with too many teeth. Edmund would have seen through it.

Susan presses her lips into thin white lines, unfolds the boxes and brings out Lucy's old bear, nothing but worn out ears and soft, fading eyes. "The start of something new," she whispers. She places the bear down on her new bed, clears her throat and Emily moves to help her.

Lucy's laughing rings her ears.

_

Susan lives on and remembers.

She remembers their senseless chatter, the familiar feel of Peter's weight next to her on her bed, the comfort of Edmund's laughter echoing in the room, Lucy's smile as she sat watching in the corner.

The days pass a little easier.

She misses them, but one of them had to live.

Susan waits, memories playing in the shadows.

**End.**

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Comments and crit are always appreciated.


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